Early in my career, I grew increasingly frustrated with the only three discussion modalities available to us: the Socratic Seminar, Fishbowl, and Harkness Discussion.
Something was desperately missing, and each time I hosted a discussion, so many things felt lacking.
Here’s what troubled me:
1. Typically, 3-4 students monopolize the conversation
2. Students arrive at a very perfunctory reading of the text
3. The level of questioning just isn’t there to produce a meaningful conversation
4. All of the uncomfortable silences landed in my lap (so therefore … everything became teacher-centered, which defeats the point)
5. Students don’t seem to know how to sequentially build upon the ideas being offered
So being me … I invented a totally different paradigm of discussion.
I call it Plato’s Play-Doh Discussion.
In essence, I gamify instruction in a way that spotlights the fact that students question texts best when they are competing and collaborating.
I have several demonstrations of this discussion mode on my YouTube channel.
But teachers always ask me … how and the heck do you get students to ask such good questions of the texts they are reading?
Good readers can ask the juicy questions of a text. And getting kids to pose these questions can be taught. And we know that the good readers can become good writers if we equip them with the right set of templates.
What I’ve done to help demonstrate this process and skill set is make yet another video that I posted in my YouTube channel.
If you’re anything like me, over the past few weeks you’ve fielded this question from kids – “Did I Miss Anything?”
Tom Wayman wrote an amazing poem by that title which is featured as the central text for this particular Plato’s Play-Doh Discussion.
In the video, you’ll see how my students tackle a text in order to ask the big questions that lead to students just absolutely shredding their reads.
Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-RfJdp_yz4
And apart from getting students to ask Tier II & Tier III level questions of a text, I’ve been asked a lot about the textbook that Timm Freitas and I are collaborating on.
Sit tight … we’re plugging away. We both have a few irons in the fire, but everything is coming along.
I’m in the data gathering portion of writing, and as I’ve mentioned, I decided to launch a course that I have entitled the Teach It “Write” 5-Week Mastermind.
A very small group of teachers and I will be gathering on Zoom starting at the end of February for five consecutive Sunday evenings from 7 pm EST – 8.
In brief, these brave souls are going to take my entire arsenal of strategies such as my templates, alternative grading methods, and discussion modalities into their classrooms for five weeks and then report back.
If you’re looking to shake things up and try your hand at some new approaches, then definitely let’s talk.
Here’s a link to my webpage to learn more:
https://teachinghow2write.com/teach-it-write-mastermind/
Looks like most of us have Monday off!
Yippy and Halleluiah!
Enjoy the long weekend
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